I thought it would be fun to talk about my favourite places to read and why I love them!

1. My bed

I guess this one is fairly obvious. It’s comfy and cosy and I love to read until I fall asleep. When I’m working, I don’t have as much time as I’d like to read, so I like to go to bed maybe an hour before I plan to sleep and curl up with a book. Even better if it’s raining because I sleep in an attic and I love hearing the rain on the roof.

2. The living room

I don’t know what other people call this, my family just refer to it as “the room” but other people say “living room”, “sitting room” or “lounge”…but you know where I mean. My house isn’t always the most peaceful, but after eating in the evening, I like to curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a blanket and read. This is improved by the presence of my dogs asleep on my knee/feet.

3. The car

If you have read one of my previous posts (the one about having no patience with people who say that they don’t have time to read), you may have assumed that I’d have the bus included somewhere in this list. But now I’ve left college, my daily bus rides aren’t as long and due to my panicking about missing my stop, I daren’t read on the bus anymore. But I love reading in the car. Long journeys are a great way to catch up on your reading (providing someone else is driving, obviously) and, thankfully, reading in the car doesn’t make me feel sick as I know it does to some of my friends.

4. The bath

Last on my list is the bath. I don’t often have the time, but one of my favourite things to do is run a bubble bath (or use a bath bomb) and just lie there, reading. Face masks are a bonus, although I tend to lose track of time and forget how long I’ve had it on for! Unfortunately, my family aren’t keen on me reading in the bath as it means no one else can use the bathroom!

Do we share any of the same favourite places to read? Leave me a comment!

Obviously, when buying presents for a bookworm, it can be difficult to buy them a book, unless they give you a specific title that they’d like, as you probably don’t know every single book they own. But never fear! I have compiled a gift guide (complete with links to buy the products) to help!

I’ll be honest, I’m considering buying myself one of these – they look so cool! They can be purchased here.

2. For the stationary-obsessed bookworm

I am yet to meet a lover of books who is not also a lover of stationary! Penguin sell several notebooks, featuring the cover of one of their classics. My personal favourite is shown in the image above. The rest of the collection can be found here.

3. For the bookworm with a lot to carry

Tote bags are super cute and a great, practical gift! This one is adorable, but there are loads of different ones available, featuring quotes from books and more! The one shown above can be purchased here.

4. For the tea or coffee drinker (or collector of mugs)

This is a mug that I’d love and know would go down well with friends of mine that love reading. There are so many book themed mugs available, it’s impossible to compile images of them all. The Matilda “I’m wondering what to read next” mug can be bought here. A wider range of book themed mugs, including those featuring the cover of a book or based on a certain book, can be browsed here.

5. For the friend that’s difficult to buy for

If all else fails, you can always buy your friend a book voucher/gift card to enable them to purchase a book which they want. Gift cards can usually be purchased from mainstream bookstores such as W. H. Smiths or Waterstones and some supermarkets may even sell these!

6. For the wearer of jewellery

Cute book-themed pieces of jewellery are relatively easy to find online. Pieces like the necklace above will go down brilliantly with the friend who wears a great deal of jewellery, or even the friend who only wears it on special occasions. You could search for jewellery specific to a book or series that you know your friend loves, or buy a piece which is a little less specific, but still book-themed. The above necklace can be purchased here.

7. For the lover of quotes/home decor

Framed quotes such as the one above, from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings make great presents! Whether it is a quote you know your friend loves or a quote taken from a book you know they enjoyed, there are plenty available to choose from. You could even buy a frame and hand-write or type a quote and make your own gift! The one above can be found here.

I hope this gift guide helped a little! I plan to make a more themed bookish gift guide when it is nearer to Christmas, so keep an eye out for more ideas!

You may have gathered from my blog posts that I am a massive Harry Potter fan! When I first heard about Pottermore, I immediately took the Sorting Hat test and was placed in Ravenclaw (by some miracle). But it has since then been updated/redone/changed and I lost my account so a couple of months ago, I retook the Sorting Hat test and was sorted into Hufflepuff, which I think is a far more accurate result (I have Hufflepuff pjs, surely that proves something).

I thought it would be fun to write a blog post of the rest of my Sorting Hat results and my patronus…so here goes!

My Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

According to Pottermore, the house ghost of Hufflepuff (the Fat Friar) is still bitter about the fact that he was never made a cardinal. I’m not sure why this fact makes me giggle so much…maybe because it just makes me think of Cardinal Wolsey (I studied Tudor history at A-Level).

I think that the fact that both Cedric Diggory and Tonks (don’t call her Nymphadora) came from Hufflepuff is very important. Tonks left her newborn baby to go and fight against Voldemort, who Cedric Diggory was killed by – you can’t say Hufflepuffs lack courage (take that, Gryffindor 😉 ). Oh and Newt Scamander was a Hufflepuff, need I say anymore?

Plus, Hufflepuffs are known for being trustworthy and loyal, AKA perfect friends! And their common room is basically next to the kitchens, talk about a perfect location.

My Ilvermorny House: Thunderbird

I’m not going to lie, I’m not really that interested in my Ilvermorny house and I don’t really know that much about it as a result of this.

According to Pottermore, the Thunderbird traits are “represents the soul” and “favours adventurers”, but again, I’m more interested in my Hogwarts house!

My Wand

11″ long

Made of Ash wood – apparently ash wands lose power if passed on from the original owner, so there go my plans of handing it down to a family member in my will…

Core of unicorn hair – according to Pottermore, wands with this core tend to be the most difficult to turn to the Dark Arts (ideal for a Hufflepuff then – Hufflepuff supposedly produces the smallest number of dark witches/wizards)

Brittle flexibility

My Patronus: A Dolphin

At one point, when I was younger, dolphins were my favourite animals (my cousin had quite an obsession with them and I picked up on it and started reading stories about them). I think dolphins are really beautiful and would look even more so as a silvery patronus…I’m pretty pleased with this result!

So, on the whole, I’m quite happy with my Pottermore Sorting results. Have you taken the Pottermore Sorting test? What results did you get?

Share them with me in the comments!

Elanor 🙂

(P.S. For those interested, the gif which is set as the featured image is taken from A Very Potter Musical, which can be found on YouTube – if you haven’t watched it, I would definitely recommend that you do! It’s amazing!)

I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember and I often have a lot of thoughts about the books I read that I am unable to share with others as not many of my friends read (and very few of those that do share my taste in books).

I don’t always have a lot of spare time and I can be fairly forgetful but I want to make a genuine attempt to run this blog and share my thoughts with other readers.

I’ve already set up two pages for my blog, one explaining my method of rating books (1-5 stars) and the other giving a (very) brief introduction of myself but I hope to edit these and develop them in the very near future.

My aim for this blog is to be able to share my views with others who have read the same books as me and are willing to discuss their thoughts on them. I also like to take photos of my books, which I share on my bookstagram (reading_at_teatime), so all photos on my blog have been taken by me.